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new ammunition into his pistols with frantic haste, no easy task when mounted,
especially with the Mauser.
A score or so enemy cavalry came onto the parade ground from the opposite
side; deducing correctly that these men in uniforms similar to theirs were
nevertheless enemies, they charged. It took all the rounds in both the Mauser
and the Browning to break that charge.
Springbuck was laying about him with Bar and thrusting a torch at whatever
looked flammable. Hightower chopped his way through adversaries, thick armor
taking dents and nicks, but the man within apparently indestructible. He threw
down his ruined shield and pulled from his side a mace with a heavy ball and
long, wicked spikes.
Gil drew his horse up next to a platform of logs, a reviewing stand of some
sort. He vaulted onto it, tied his reins to the rail and pulled his carbine
from its saddle scabbard. Taking stance, he knew the peculiar calm that often
came to him at such times. He began to fire rapidly at the milling riders
whose faces he couldn t see. He felt something brush his leg and looked down
to see an arrow quivering in the wood near his boot. Archers were casting
their shafts at him from the left. He threw himself prone and continued to
fire, dropping several bowmen and dispersing the rest.
The platform trembled and he looked around. From nowhere, a fully armored
knight in plate had ridden up to the platform; unable to reach Gil from the
saddle, he had somehow managed to dismount and clamber over the rail. Though
ungainly when not on his charger, the knight lumbered on, sword raised.
Gil brought his carbine around and pulled the trigger; but its breech was
open, the magazine spent, and the American knew with heart-stopping surety he
was to die.
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And he would have died, except that the knight, as was the style in his own
circles, wore sollerets with long, articulated, pointed toes. As he stepped
nearer to kill the outlander, his metal footwear well suited to stirrups but
impractical under these circumstances tripped him. He tottered for a second in
his heavy plate, then fell to one knee.
Gil bounced to his feet, shifted his grip on the carbine and drove its butt
under the open visor, and again, shaking with fear reaction. The knight
toppled with a resonant clang and didn t move.
Now defense was becoming organized and members of the raiding party were
falling back around Gil, hemmed in on all sides. Swords flashed in the night
like fish in some deep pool. Gil slung his carbine and plucked from his belt
the two fragmentation hand grenades he d saved against desperate resort. As if
at range practice, he tore the GI tape from the bodies of the grenades, pulled
the pins, let the spoons fly free and hurled them as far as he could in the
direction in which the party must soon make its way.
The dull metal egg-shapes arched through the air, timers marking the seconds.
They landed in dense clusters of troops, unnoticed for a moment until the
detonations sent bits of metal through flesh, riddling horse and man.
Opposition fell back at the twin reports, and raiders could see that their way
through the smoke was cleared for the time being.
Gil, reloading his pistols for the final run, dropped the empty Browning
magazine and spent Mauser clip irreplaceable, but no time to fiddle with them
now and called for the others to follow him. He launched himself off the
platform onto Jeb Stuart, returning the carbine to its sheath.
Springbuck, shaken by the grenade concussions, waved his torch and cried,
 No, I shall lead. Buglers, sound the call as I have told you!
The buglers, hearing him, blew four last, baleful notes. They didn t sound
the battle flourish of the Ku-Mor-Mai, but rather  The Crown s Retribution,
notes to mark state executions and other occasions of high vengeance. Those
who heard were astounded and afraid. It seemed as if a death sentence had been
passed on them by a phantom monarch come with flame, thunder and sword
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